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I made an effort to learn Dutch for around 6 months of last year. Although it's a well known as a language, it's only spoken natively by around 20 million(ish),
by hazbo 10y ago
I made an effort to learn Dutch for around 6 months of last year. Although it's a well known as a language, it's only spoken natively by around 20 million(ish), so isn't massively useful outside of the Netherlands and Belgium, among a few other places in the world. My first language is English. I just wanted a second language under my belt and I enjoy spending time in the Netherlands. The problem with learning Dutch is, most people (that I came across at least) in the Netherlands are already fluent in English and from my experience it seemed like they'd much rather just speak to you in English. So to actually speak Dutch there, it's important to be clear that you don't want to converse in English and that you're trying to improve your skills. It was really important to me that I'd speak a bit of Dutch every day, ideally to native speakers. This requires a bit of effort (as I live and spend most of my time in England), but it's suprising how easy it is to either find Dutch people here to speak to and also online.
It benefited me in the sense that I ended up making some new friends out of it and had a lot of fun just learning (or trying to learn) a second language. I think learning a new language like this can open up some doors and can help you meet a lot of new interesting people you'd perhaps not have met otherwise. I'd love to pick it up again next year. So we'll see.
- BjoernKW 10y agoSame here. I started learning Dutch at university about 10 years ago and kept at it. I can absolutely relate to your experience. At least in casual settings it's very difficult to speak Dutch because everybody will default to English upon realising you're not a native speaker. I like Dutch culture and I'm in the Netherlands several times a year. In terms of benefits, knowing the local language helps with both navigating everyday life more easily and better understanding society.
- gotofritz 10y agoFor what is worth, it's true of all languages if you are a native English speaker - everyone wants to improve their English, and for them it's tiring trying to make sense of your attempts at speaking their language as you are learning. Best thing is to pretend you are Finnish or Macedonian or something and say you don't speak English at all!
- hazbo 10y agoI haven't tried that before but that could be a good idea. I just hope my accent doesn't make it too obvious!
- tom_mellior 10y ago> everyone wants to improve their English Your point is certainly valid for many people in many places, but in France I find it to be mostly false. Most people, even in computer science, will rather have me butcher French than switch to butchering English themselves.
- gotofritz 10y agoOh yeah, the French are, shall we say, "special"...